Mueller Fails Again/ Marijuana Should Never be Legal

A federal jury in Virginia convicted Paul Manafort, President Donald Trump’s former campaign chairman, on eight counts on Tuesday, but a mistrial was declared on the 10 other charges he faced.

The trial was the first public test of special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation, and while the special counsel was vindicated, the victory wasn’t total.

The jury deliberated for four days after hearing 12 days of arguments, evidence and witnesses.

Mueller’s team buried the defendant in an avalanche of emails, tax returns, bank documents and the damning testimony of bankers, accountants, and Manafort’s onetime protégé, Rick Gates. The defense sought to raise doubts Gates’ credibility and about other aspects of the evidence, and was partially successful.

Manafort, 69, also faces another trial on related charges next month in Washington.

OK, folks, if Mueller could not bring this case fully home on all 18 charges with all of the power that he has, then he is even weaker than we thought, which is really weak.

This Manafort case had nothing to do with Trump and Russia. It focused on bank fraud and tax fraud. That is why the Muller probe into alleged ‘collusion’ between president Trump and Russia needs to be shut down. Now. This ‘collusion’ story only was concocted after Trump won the election.

There is not one shred of evidence that Trump and Russia colluded; that is why Mueller has not moved against Trump. In fact there is not even a crime called “collusion” in the federal code.

It is time for special counsel Robert Mueller to end his probe of Trump, and write his report, which will be full of slander and innuendo intended to harm Republicans at the polls in November.

Former Republican congressman Newt Gingrich wrote on the Fox News website an article called There is now no excuse for Special Counsel Robert Mueller to ask to interview President Trump:

In fact it is now clear the investigators have been given so much information about the president’s actions and had such remarkably open access, they should just close shop and write their final report.

They no longer have any grounds for going to court to get a subpoena to compel the president to testify.

Mueller’s fatal mistake was revealed Saturday in The New York Times story titled, “White House Counsel, Don McGahn, Has Cooperated Extensively in Mueller Inquiry.” Michael Schmidt and Maggie Haberman reported that there were at least 30 hours of interviews between the Mueller team and the White House Counsel.

McGahn’s cooperation is historically unique because President Trump waived both executive privilege and attorney-client privilege. President Trump was so confident of his innocence that he waived both of these protections to allow the Special Counsel to thoroughly question the White House attorney.

Accepting such a thorough and detailed briefing from the White House Counsel will ultimately hurt the efforts of Mueller’s team of left-wing Democratic lawyers.

McGahn is a very widely-respected lawyer, who thoroughly understands the difference between legal and illegal behavior – and he was in the room for virtually all of President Trump’s activities.

It couldn’t be more clear: The Trump White House was comfortable talking for 30 hours with a pack of high-powered, very tough-minded investigators, because the president has done nothing wrong.

This is spot-on. Mueller has everything he needs and all the time in the world to nail Trump and he still has not done so. That is why he is dragging his feet so as to have maximum impact on the November elections.

Attorney general Jeff Sessions shares the blame for this Mueller fiasco. He has allowed it to happen by stupidly recusing himself from the Russia probe. Trump should fire Sessions in January when Senate Republicans have more power to approve a new AG quickly. Sessions has been the most incompetent AG ever.

Trump Should Never Legalize Marijuana

President Trump recently floated a political ‘trial balloon’ suggesting that he might approve the legalization of marijuana on the federal level.

But that would require the House and Senate to approve it, which isn’t going to happen anyway.

Marijuana remains illegal under federal law while the legalization of marijuana under state laws does nothing to change that.

The only thing that has changed is that federal officials under Obama chose not to enforce the federal law as states chose to legalize “weed”.

Attorney general Sessions has reversed the Obama ruling and is giving US attorneys leeway to prosecute state marijuana retailers and growers under federal law. None has done so yet.

The federal law against marijuana has had a significant dampening effect on legal marijuana businesses, however. It prohibits them from accessing banking services. That is a positive thing. Let’s keep it that way.

There is good reason that the president should never legalize marijuana. Fox News reports about the negative effects of marijuana in this disturbing column by former federal ‘drug czars’ Bill Bennett and John Walters in a column called Mr. Trump, please don’t legalize marijuana at the federal level:

Obviously, decriminalizing the sale and possession of marijuana will make the drug more available and increase use.

… First and foremost, marijuana is already associated with more abuse and dependency (now called substance abuse disorder) than all other illegal drugs combined. Roughly four out of seven problem users of illegal drugs are using marijuana. This is a dangerous blind spot exploited by many legalization advocates (although some of them are now warning about the growing risk of heavy marijuana use under legalization).

If you doubt legalization brings a rapid increase in marijuana use and addiction, consider the situation in Colorado. This is the test case; the experiment in legalization created by the Obama Administration. Colorado permitted the so-called “medical” sale of marijuana in 2009 and “recreational” sale in (2014). Some seem to believe, falsely, that marijuana use in Colorado has been accompanied by a decline in other drug use. This is emphatically not true. Last year more Coloradans died from drug overdoses than at any time in the state’s history. The cruel “Colorado experiment” has failed. Nonetheless, legalizers want to repeat it from sea to shining sea.

Second, marijuana use is not safe. Legalization advocates frequently play on the fact that many Americans have used the drug without recognizable harm as proof that most marijuana use is benign.

… As the American Academy of Pediatrics notes: “The adverse effects of marijuana have been well documented” and include “impaired short-term memory, decreased concentration, attention span, and problem solving” which “interfere[s] with learning.” Researchers have also reported: “Regular cannabis use in adolescence approximately doubles the risks of early school-leaving and of cognitive impairment and psychoses in adulthood.” And other researchers have warned that States that have legalized “medical” marijuana find an association with higher 12th grade drop-out rates and lessened college attainment.

But the most troubling research has found: “Persistent adolescent-onset cannabis users” showed “an average 8-point IQ decline from childhood to adulthood.” Marijuana use can permanently lower intelligence and worsen, perhaps cause, serious mental illness. As the Journal of the American Medical Association has reported: “There is little doubt about the existence of an association between substance use and psychotic illness…studies suggest that the association between cannabis use and later psychosis might be causal, a conclusion supported by studies showing that cannabis use is associated with an earlier age at onset of psychotic disorders, particularly schizophrenia.”

Marijuana has been used heavily in the US since the 1960s. But strangely no widely-publicized studies have been reported that show how much damage it really has done like those studies that have been written about cigarettes.

Just think about millions of crazy people on our streets today or those who are suffering with mental illness or living in poverty or screaming about president Trump in lunatic fashion.

Much of this comes from the devastating effects of marijuana on the brain, but it is never reported since the liberal media love marijuana and want it to continue to be perceived as ‘harmless’ and “better than alcohol”.

Why do liberals love ‘weed’?

Because it makes people stupid, crazy and lazy and more likely to accept the Democrat point of view without question.

We also know that kids will start to use marijuana at younger and younger ages when they see that it is legal in their states. After all, they will think, “I’m gonna use it when I get older. So why not start a few years early?” This is a very bad trend.

Nikitas3.com has a personal story. An acquaintance, a successful businessman with a wonderful family and a $10 million fortune, was a lifelong marijuana addict. He died at age 63 in an accident in 2017 that appears from the circumstances to have been a result of his being “stoned”. Yet he always advocated smilingly for legal marijuana as if it was just ‘harmless fun’.

To put it bluntly, marijuana is a vice. We do not need more vices. We need fewer vices. We cannot build a durable and stable culture when millions of people are in a drug stupor. We have enough problems with alcohol and other illegal drugs already.

There is a big difference between “legalization” and “decriminalization” of marijuana. Nikitas3.com has this suggestion – ‘decriminalize’ small amounts of marijuana so as not to clog our courts and jails with petty cases that ruin people’s lives.

Then we should impose heavy penalties for dealers and traffickers in order to thwart marijuana at its source.

We should never, ever “legalize” marijuana which means that it can be sold in stores, cultivated legally, and would totally lose its stigma.

Sad Story about Small Farms

Irina Ivanova at CBS reported:

The unequal economy that’s emerged over the past decade, combined with patchy access to health care in rural areas, have had a severe impact on the people growing America’s food. Recent data shows just how much. Farmers are dying by suicide at a higher rate than any other occupational group, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The suicide rate in the field of farming, fishing and forestry is 84.5 per 100,000 people—more than five times that of the population as a whole.

… the figures in the CDC study mirror other recent findings. Rates of suicide have risen fastest, and are highest, in rural areas, the CDC found in a different study released earlier this month.

In the U.S., several longtime farm advocates say today’s crisis mirrors one that happened in the 1980s, when many U.S. farmers struggled economically, with an accompanying spike in farmer suicides.

This is very sad, particularly since farmers work hard and often end up with little or no reward. They are generally conservative people.

Rural areas have struggled with poverty throughout history. Rural America is no different, and has been suffering for many decades as small farms went out of business and bigger farms mechanized, leading to a sharp drop in the need for labor. This has led to more poverty and unemployment in rural America and a population exodus.

Health care is another major problem. Hospitals and doctors in most rural areas are few and far between.

Green’ policies have contributed to the rural crisis. For instance, logging has been severely curtailed in the American West, while mining and quarrying face increased opposition from well-financed ‘green’ groups.

Heavy ‘green’ regulation of farming practices have also made it more difficult for small farmers to keep up and stay legal with all of the new laws.

Another important element in this equation is race. Liberals hate the conservative white people who make up the overwhelming majority the farming population. They therefore have no compunction about making life even more difficult for those people through regulation and even media mockery.